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4/28/06 - Farewell to the King: (Basil Poledouris) --Expanded Review--
"Director John Milius' adaptation of Pierre Schondorffer's 1969 novel "L'Adieu au Roi" takes
considerable elements from Milius' penned Apocalypse Now and combines them with several
homages to Lawrence of Arabia and The Man Who Would Be King to form another film
about a utopian dream of the simple, natural life among noble primitives. In this case, Nick
Nolte is a World War II American Army sergeant who deserts the service after narrowly escaping
capture by the Japanese during the battle of Corregidor on Borneo in 1942. He flees inland
until encountering a tribe of headhunting Dyak Indians. Instead of killing him, the
headshrinking Iban tribe in Sarawak allows to him to live because of a tattoo of a dragon on
his chest, and eventually he becomes king of the tribe. Three years later, the war catches up
with him as the British parachute onto the island and attempt to enlist the American and his
tribute to fight against the Japanese...." ***** Read the entire review.
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4/24/06 - Wind: (Basil Poledouris) --Expanded Review-- "Few films have
been made about modern competitive sailing, and even fewer have captured the glory of a race
on the ocean with cinematography as stunning as that of Wind. Director Carroll
Ballard's film about four individuals teaming up to build their own boat to race in the
America's Cup succeeds brilliantly whenever giving us the action on the water, but largely
failed with critics because of its clunky melodrama between its primary characters when on
soil. Overcoming a romantic triangle, the young, brash captain and his associates finish their
boat in time for the race of Fremantle, Australia in 1987, succeeding in a world where the
millionaires who run the crews aren't always the most sympathetic of characters. Ballard,
director of The Black Stallion previously, was unable to make use of the screenplay by
Rudy Wurlitzer and Mac Gudgeon outside of the glory of the high seas. Composer Basil
Poledouris, though, largely succeeds in both wet and dry environments in Wind, thanks
to his own personal love of sailing...." **** Read the entire review.
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4/21/06 - On Deadly Ground: (Basil Poledouris) --Expanded Review-- "If
somebody in the room with you starts laughing when he or she hears actor Michael Caine's voice
in real-life commercials for petroleum companies, then that person will have watched On
Deadly Ground. The wretched film marked the directorial debut of crotch-kicking martial
arts specialist (and actor, though some wouldn't go that far) Steven Seagal, who saw the
project as an opportunity to insert his liberal ideologies into a film in which he could also
be seen doing what he enjoys in his spare time: punching and kicking other grown men in
painful places. When not invading other peoples' personal bubble space with his fist or foot,
he delivers dialogue that only the mother of the writer could love, and On Deadly
Ground is filled to the brim with such banter. On the political front, Seagal delivers a
short docudrama against oil companies at the end of the film that the studio forced him to cut
in length dramatically...." *** Read the entire review.
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4/18/06 - The Triangle: (Joseph LoDuca) --All New Review-- "One entry in
the myriad of science fiction mystery flicks produced specifically for the American Sci-Fi
Channel, The Triangle aired originally in December 2005 and again in March of 2006.
Both the Sci-Fi Channel (and its sister network, the U.S.A. Channel) have made a living by
producing these type of big ticket affairs for their core audiences, and while still
floundering at times in its television genre, The Triangle seems to have garnered more
critical and popular success than many of the other romps on the Sci-Fi Channel. Produced by
Bryan Singer and Dean Devlin (who co-wrote the six-hour mini with sci-fi veteran Rockne S.
O'Bannon), the project features a solid cast led by Sam Neill and over 800 digitally-rendered
special effects shots. The plot tackles a possible truth about the Bermuda Triangle, with a
billionaire (Neill) hiring a group of scientists and survivors of the mysterious oceanic
region to determine once and for all what is happening to his container ships..." ** Read the entire review.
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4/15/06 - The Poseidon Adventure: (John Williams) --Expanded Review--
"After the surprising success of Airport in 1970, the stage was set for a series of
highly popular disaster films in that decade, led by a leap from television to big screen by
producer Irwin Allen. Having offered several documentaries and fantasy TV series in the years
prior, Allen would jump from the massive success of The Poseidon Adventure in 1972 to
The Towering Inferno in 1974, before The Swarm later in the 1970's would end his
run. These films usually put stellar casts on display, and along with its mammoth production
values for the time, The Poseidon Adventure would receive nine Academy Award
nominations (winning for song and special effects). Among these nominations was one for the
score by John Williams, who had himself
morphed from the "Johnny" Williams of 1960's jazz into a capable symphonic action composer by
the time his collaboration with Allen reached the big screen. Despite his soon-to-come
reputation, however, Williams' work here is largely atmospheric. His harsh, brass theme of
epic proportions for the title is utilized often..." **** Read the entire review.
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4/11/06 - Flatliners/Falling Down: (James Newton Howard)
--Expanded Review-- "One
of the more sought after private CD releases of the mid-1990's was this combo album
released in 1997 with two of James Newton Howard's scores for well-known films. The
mass appeal for this pseudo-bootleg surrounded the release of the highly varied and
occasionally beautiful score for Flatliners, a Joel Schumacher film with an
all-star production crew and cast that depicted a group of medical students who
decided they would challenge the power of God by suspending themselves in
near-death experiences to see what happens at the doors of the other side.
Supposedly, the experience is reported to one of peaceful bliss, but these cocky
students at University of Chicago manage to turn the affair into a series of gloomy
and suspenseful maneuvers in resuscitation, all set in a Gothic and shadowy
environment that causes the film to walk a fine line between adventure and horror.
Howard plays the score along the lines of a religious horror film, alternating
between glorious choral statements of beauty and terrifying barrages... *** Read the entire
review.
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4/8/06 - Outbreak: (James Newton Howard) --Expanded Review-- "Tales about
the ultimate plague have bounced around in science fiction novels for decades, for mysterious,
deadly diseases remain a dark territory in which the average person can easily be scared in a
story. In Wolfgang Petersen's Outbreak, an all-star cast is assembled to combat the
spread of a plague that is initially seen in Africa some 40 years ago. By the 1990's, the
plague manifests itself in an African monkey that is being smuggled into the United States for
sale as a pet, but before its inevitable escape, it manages to infect a human carrier and the
disease spreads across the nation at an alarming rate. This plague in particular is a nasty
one, liquifying internal organs and killing a person in a day, and the government is inclined
to destroy the outbreak areas with massive bombs. The film was a serviceable thriller, gaining
respectable reviews and returns at the box office, and for composer James Newton Howard, it
would follow one of his more diverse action scores of his career, Waterworld, a year
prior...." *** Read the entire review.
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4/5/06 - My Best Friend's Wedding: (James Newton Howard)
--Expanded Review-- "It's a scenario in which we're absolutely sure how the
film is going to resolve itself, but My Best Friend's Wedding succeeds in
its ability defy those expectations. A splitting pair of college lovers decide that
if they're both still single at age 28, they'll get married. The girlfriend, a
famous food critic played by Julia Roberts, waits to hear from Dermot Mulroney as
their birthdays approach, but when he does call her, it's to let her know that he's
marrying someone else a few days before the deadline. Roberts' character, of
course, sets out to sabotage the wedding, and while this plotline may sound
predictable, P.J. Hogan's film isn't. The lead man's girlfriend isn't the ditzy
blonde we expect Cameron Diaz to be, nor is Roberts' lead as sympathetic as we
expect her to be. She gets down to some borderline criminal sabotage before we know
it, and thus takes the film down a path we least expect. While deviating from the
usual lines of romantic comedies that fly through the theatres all the time..."
*** Read the entire
review.
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4/2/06 - Ghostbusters: (Elmer Bernstein) --All New Review-- "Among the
triumphs of director Ivan Reitman is the undeniably funny Ghostbusters, arguably the
best that Harold Ramis and SNL alums Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray ever put to screen. From its
unforgettable logo to its title song by Ray Parker Jr., Ghostbusters would outrun
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom at the box office in 1984, reaching earnings of
over $200 million after initial studio panic over its bloated $32 budget. For fans of
paranormal comedies, Ghostbusters can't go wrong, with a plotline of 1980's New York
serving as a focal point for the return of supernatural demons from another dimension. The
city relies on a group of nerdy pseudo-scientists to save them from their chosen destruction
at the hands of Zool, Gozer the Gozerian, and, of course, the giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man
(though the suggestion of J. Edgar Hoover as the form of the destructor must have been awfully
tempting, too). Everyone wanted a piece of the Ghostbusters pie, and aside from the
sequel a few years later..." **** Read the entire review.
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